


Should've Put A Ring On It

by smilebackwards



Category: Glee
Genre: Epic Fail, Jealousy, M/M, Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt starts dating a baseball player. Puck is not pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should've Put A Ring On It

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://gleebigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[**gleebigbang**](http://gleebigbang.livejournal.com/). Also includes [gorgeous art](http://sijay.livejournal.com/39759.html) by [](http://sijay.livejournal.com/profile)[**sijay**](http://sijay.livejournal.com/)!

Puck still sits with the jocks at lunch, but sometimes he thinks he might as well just defect to the gleek table because he spends half the period staring over at them and he usually misses most of whatever stories the guys are telling about their recent Cheerio conquests.

He gets pulled back in every once in a while by phrases like “ _huge_ tits, man” (usually accompanied by expansive gestures over the chest area) and “Amanda Harris blew me in the locker room” (which Puck knows is shit because Amanda Harris actually _should_ be the president of the Celibacy Club), but yeah, he spends a lot of time watching the gleek table.

So Puck notices when all of the sudden a new face shows up there. The new kid has short blonde hair and a wide mouth, and Puck thinks he recognizes him from the varsity baseball team. His chair is settled right up close to Kurt Hummel, their legs pressing against each other from ankle to thigh.

\---

“Who’s that asshole that was sitting with you guys at lunch?” Puck asks Finn after the bell rings and they’re back at their lockers grabbing their History books so they can go learn about Christopher Columbus or some other jerk-off that lived five hundred years ago. Finn looks at him blankly and Puck realizes he’s going to have to spell it out. “The blonde guy?” he clarifies.

“Oh, you mean Sam,” Finn says, fishing around for a notebook. “He’s not an asshole. He’s actually really nice.”

That is not the kind of information Puck wants. “Sam who?” he prods. “And why is he sitting at your lunch table?”

Finn stills. “Sam Blackwell,” he says, a little reluctantly. “He’s a junior. On the baseball team.” And then, because Finn is about as subtle as a brick, he tries to distract Puck with, “We should get to class before the bell rings.”

Puck stops Finn with a hand on his shoulder. “Why is Sam Blackwell from the baseball team sitting at your lunch table?” he asks again. Calmly.

Finn’s eyes catch on his and then skitter away. “Look, man,” he says, “I just don’t want you to do anything… or say anything that you might regret later. I mean, it’s not like it’s a secret that Kurt’s…”

“Finn,” Puck says impatiently. “Spit it the fuck out.”

“Sam is Kurt’s boyfriend, okay?” Finn says. “And I don’t want you to hassle him about it. Either of them. They’re nice guys and they don’t deserve to take any crap over this.”

Puck slams his locker shut with a satisfying clang that echoes down the nearly empty hallway and ignores Finn’s shouts for him to come back.

\---

The next morning, Puck is waiting in the parking lot when Kurt pulls up and gets out of his shiny, black SUV.

“Hey, Hummel,” Puck calls to get Kurt’s attention. Kurt looks up from going through his bag and his face registers surprise as he realizes that he’s surrounded by jocks, the dumpster six feet away.

When his eyes find Puck, they go wide and betrayed. Puck hasn’t had Kurt thrown in a dumpster in months and he honestly can’t say why he feels the need right now. He wonders how much Kurt’s designer outfit cost and he feels a little guilty, but not enough to let whatever this is go. “Here, give me your jacket,” Puck offers, like they’ve come some kind of weird full circle to the beginning of the year and Puck has taken Finn’s place as the jock ringleader who parcels out kindness in tiny increments before chucking people in the dumpster.

Puck tries not to look too closely at what that means about him, that maybe he wants to follow Finn’s progression to gaining Kurt’s friendship. Because Finn sits at the gleek table at lunch nowadays. Every few weeks, he wears a button down shirt -just a shade too light to be called red- that Kurt bought him for his birthday. He talks about music and when he slings an arm over Kurt’s shoulders at football games, Kurt smiles at him, bright as the stadium lights.

When Kurt glares at Puck, his eyes are bright with anger, not happiness, but it’s better than not being looked at at all. “Just do it,” Kurt bites, tossing his messenger bag to the ground.

“Give me your jacket,” Puck presses, refusing to be rebuffed.

Kurt stands his ground. “ _No_ ,” he says, with clear emphasis, eyes locked with Puck in challenge. He crosses his arms over his chest like he expects Puck to try to forcefully rip his jacket off him. It makes Puck even more angry because he’d been considering doing exactly that.

“Fine!” Puck yells, and Kurt is the only one that doesn’t flinch. The other football players take hasty steps back. Evans and Landry share a quick glance, their grip on Kurt loosening like maybe they want to let him go. Puck grabs Kurt out from between them and hurls him into the dumpster himself. The other jocks slink off slowly and quietly, with none of the laughter that used to accompany this ritual, and Puck stands steaming in front of the dumpster alone, with the phantom feel of Kurt’s weight in his arms from the second before he dropped him into the trash.

There is the rustling sound of garbage bags pushing against one another as Kurt tries to disentangle himself and climb out of the dumpster and then Puck hears a muffled, “Ow!”

Immediately, he’s halfway in the dumpster himself, arms reaching blindly for Kurt. “What?” he asks. “What happened?” Puck feels the soft leather of Kurt’s jacket and pulls, dragging him out of the dumpster.

Overbalanced by Kurt’s weight, they topple backwards, Puck keeping Kurt on top of him to cushion Kurt’s landing. Puck’s head thuds loudly against the pavement and Kurt ends up sprawled halfway across his chest, knocking the air out of him, but he’s up on his knees beside Kurt in a second. “What happened?” Puck repeats, running his hands over Kurt’s arms, checking for hurt.

Kurt holds out his right hand. “I think I might need to go to the nurse,” he says, matter-of-factly. There’s a large piece of brown glass, probably from a broken beer bottle, stuck in the center of his palm. Blood is welling up around it, and Puck can tell it’s dug in deep from the way Kurt is biting his lip.

“Fuck,” Puck says. “Okay, okay, c’mon. I’ll walk you.” He stands quickly and takes a few stuttering steps to right his balance, dizzy.

“Are you okay?” Kurt asks, staring up at him from the ground. “It sounded like you hit your head when we fell.”

Puck wants to laugh, bitter, because he just threw Kurt in a dumpster and now Kurt’s on the ground with blood dripping down his wrist and he actually fucking _cares_ that Puck maybe has a karmic-deserved bump on the back of his head. “I’m fine,” Puck says, reaching out to give Kurt a hand up.

It’s a little awkward because Kurt has to take Puck’s right hand with his unhurt left hand, but Puck finds that pulling Kurt up is infinitely easier than throwing him down.

“This is because of Sam and me, isn’t it?” Kurt asks quietly, cradling his hand as they walk into the school. “What, so it was okay for me to be gay as long as you didn’t have to see it?”

“It wasn’t… I mean, maybe it was a little bit about Sam, but…” Puck trails off, not knowing how to explain it, even to himself. Kurt doesn’t so much as look at him again until they get to the infirmary and Nurse Betty swarms over to them with gauze and alcohol wipes.

Puck and Nurse Betty have a pretty good relationship since he spends second period in the infirmary almost every day, feigning illness to get out of Algebra. While she’s examining Kurt, she gives him a smile and a preemptive ginger ale in the hope that it will settle his stomach enough that he won’t end up here for second period. Puck drinks the ginger ale a little guiltily and resolves to hide out in the gym to skip Algebra today.

“How did this happen?” the nurse asks, clucking over Kurt’s hand.

“We were in the parking lot,” Kurt says, before Puck can get a word in. “There was a bottle on the ground and I tripped.”

Puck opens him mouth, then closes it soundlessly, unsure why Kurt is willing to cover for him. He suspects Kurt isn’t going to be speaking to him for a while, so it may be a long time before he finds out.

\---

Kurt’s hand is wrapped in white gauze and ace bandage for two days before he turns it into an accessory.

The third day, he lets people sign the bandage like a cast. Mercedes draws hearts on it with a dozen different colored gel pens. Tina donates a fingerless mesh glove. It’s less stark than the bright, clean white of the untouched bandage and people stop staring at Kurt’s hand and asking what happened. They glance over it the way they do his colorful scarves and odd hats, half disdainful and half fascinated.

Puck keeps staring until a week later, when the bandage comes off leaving only a healing scar.

\---

Puck is good at denial.

When he and Quinn fell together at the beginning of the year, an empty six pack of Natty Light at his feet and Quinn matching each of his beers with a strawberry kiwi wine cooler, then had tipsy, I-hate-being-second-best sex, the moment they woke up they’d shoved it awkwardly behind them.

Quinn’s eyes were frightened and she’d slipped on her shirt and straightened her hair while Puck watched her blurrily in the mirror and thought _this did not happen._

They pass each other in the halls now every day, and half the time Puck spends with Finn she’s hanging off his arm, but they never say a word about what happened, so it’s almost like it never did.

Watching Kurt held tight in the circle of Sam Blackwell’s arm makes something burn bright and hot in Puck’s chest. He rubs a fist over his sternum and vows to stop eating the sausage from the cafeteria line.

\---

The last football game of the season comes on a cool November night and the stands are packed with people.

Puck doesn’t bother to look for his mom; she’s never made it to any of his games. He sees Kurt waving frantically at someone in the middle section and takes a moment to scan the crowd, looking curiously for Kurt’s parents. He imagines Kurt takes after his mom and searches for high, fragile cheekbones and pink lips, but he doesn’t see anyone that reminds him of Kurt and when he tries to follow Kurt’s line of sight, he finds that Kurt has turned to look at someone else.

Sam is in the stands next to Mercedes, Tina and Artie. They’ve each got a square of white posterboard with a brightly-colored letter painted on, spelling out KURT. Sam holds up a red K and Kurt smiles and waves at him. Puck scowls and turns away.

Three minutes before halftime, ‘Single Ladies’ comes on over the loudspeakers and Kurt kicks a perfect field goal to the lyrics, “If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it. Don’t be mad when you see that he want it. If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it.” Sam’s voice is cheering from the stands.

Denial snaps straight to acceptance. Puck can practically hear Beyonce singing, “This is your own damn fault, boy.”

\---

The thing is, it’s not even that Puck really cares so much about the fact that he’s apparently discovered himself to be bisexual. He’s always done his own thing.

It’s just the fact that he likes _Kurt Hummel_ that’s really fucking inconvenient.

\---

Now that Puck is officially out of denial, he’s transitioned to sitting at the gleek table for lunch.

He tells people it’s because Finn is sitting there, but Finn, Rachel and Quinn are usually at one side of the table playing out some dramatic love triangle over French fries, which leaves Puck at the other side of the table across from Kurt and Sam, so it’s not a particularly compelling lie. Puck tells himself at least he’s not playing out a dramatic love triangle with Kurt and Sam, but that’s not a particularly good lie either. Although he does seem to be the only one aware of it.

Unlike the brittle, almost combative smiles Finn and Quinn share lately, Sam and Kurt seem entirely relaxed in each other’s company. Kurt is wearing Sam’s letterman jacket, the McKinley High ‘M’ right over his heart like a warning sign reading, “Mine.”

“Why are you even in this lunch period?” Puck asks Sam, annoyed. “Don’t the upperclassmen eat after the fourth bell?”

Sam laughs. “I have study hall this period.” He pulls out a green bathroom pass and smiles his wide, white-toothed smile, “I’ve convinced the monitor that I have some kind of embarrassing gastrointestinal issue, so I can usually skip out for at least twenty minutes.”

“Heartburn?” Kurt smirks.

“Absolutely,” Sam returns, a little too seriously. He picks up Kurt’s hand and presses a chaste kiss to the back of it.

Puck wonders if it’s the protection of Sam being an upperclassman and a jock or if people are just less prejudiced than he thought. Kurt and Sam sit close together and hold hands, sickening sweet, on top of the table. A few people laugh or point, whispering together like they’re being subtle, but no one throws a slushie on them or anything.

Sam moves his hand down to Kurt’s knee and Puck’s hand clenches tight around his own slushie. He imagines himself throwing the whole thing at Sam, cup and all. Kurt laughs at something Sam whispers in his ear, and Puck gulps his slushie down so fast he gives himself brain freeze.

\---

Puck hasn’t been to a math class in two years and he doesn’t plan on showing up ever until he notices Kurt carrying around the same Algebra II textbook that’s collecting dust on the bottom of his locker.

An hour block of Sam-free time with Kurt is totally worth pretending to listen to some teacher talk about square roots and imaginary numbers. So Puck digs up his math book from beneath his gym clothes and football cleats and waits until Kurt walks past his locker. “Headed to Algebra?” Puck asks without waiting for an answer. “Me too. I’ll walk with you.”

Kurt nods automatically and then Puck’s words catch up with him. “Wait, wait,” Kurt says. “You’re not in my Algebra class. I’m in second period with Mr. Klusner.”

“Yeah,” Puck replies. “Me too.”

Kurt stares at him. “You are _not_ in that class.”

“Well, no, I haven’t been in the class _physically_ ,” Puck explains. “But I am registered for it.” He holds up his textbook. “I’ve even got the book.”

Kurt eyes the book skeptically. The binding is broken, it’s got claw marks on it from the time Puck accidentally brought it home thinking it was his Earth Science book and the cat got at it, and there’s a dubious brown stain on the cover hiding the Alg of Algebra. Puck’s pretty sure the stain is just melted chocolate. He hopes.

“Well, you’ve got _a_ book,” Kurt allows. “I guess you could probably convince people you’ve actually been using it considering how much damage it’s taken.”

Puck nods. That’s exactly what he plans to do.

He follows Kurt up the south staircase and around a corner and almost walks past the classroom when Kurt turns abruptly into room 209. Kurt gives him a look from inside the doorframe. “This is the classroom,” he says pointedly, but his mouth is amused.

Kurt moves over toward the row of desks alongside the windows and sits down in one. Puck slides into the empty seat beside Kurt even though it most likely belongs to someone else.

The bell rings at ten on the dot and the teacher looks up from grading papers at his desk and goes to stand beside the white board at the front of the room. Mr. Klusner calls roll distractedly, marking off absences, until he reaches Matthew Watson. “Did I miss anybody?” he asks, clearly not expecting a response.

Puck raises a hand. “You didn’t call my name.”

The teacher does a double-take and skims his eyes down the class list. “Puckerman,” he says hesitantly, looking confused. “I have your name crossed off here for some reason. Are you transferring in from a different class?”

“No,” Puck says, trying to look innocent. He can tell from Kurt’s sardonic expression that he’s fallen short of the mark.

Mr. Klusner looks more taken in. “Well, do you have the book?” he asks, perplexed. Puck blows a cloud of dust off his textbook and holds it up. “All right, then,” Klusner shrugs, marking off Puck’s name on the list and turning to the whiteboard. “Everyone open to page 112 and take a look at question 1.”

Puck shifts his desk a little closer to Kurt’s and opens his book.

\---

It’s become routine for Kurt and Puck to walk to Algebra together now that Puck is actually going to class, but on Monday Kurt isn’t waiting for Puck to pick him up at his locker. Puck waits a few minutes in case Kurt got held behind in his English class. When Kurt still doesn’t show, he shrugs and moves off down the hall. Puck’s fingering his cell phone and thinking about texting Kurt to see if he’s home sick, when someone collides with him.

Kurt stumbles out of the bathroom straight into Puck’s chest and Puck’s arms come up around him automatically, steady. “Oh, sorry,” Kurt says, but he’s smiling dopily, like he didn’t really feel the impact. His obsessively perfect hair is sticking up in a cowlick in the back and one side of his shirt collar is flipped up. His lips are even redder than usual.

Puck feels his arms tighten around Kurt when the bathroom door swings open again and Sam steps out, fixing the line of his jacket.

“Did you just molest Hummel in the school bathroom?” Puck questions, incredulous.

Sam reaches up and smoothes down the cowlick in Kurt’s hair. “I didn’t do anything he didn’t ask me to,” Sam grins, like they’re sharing a joke and not at all like Puck’s about to punch him in the face.

It’s not just jealousy that curls low and hot in Puck’s stomach. It’s a horrible kind of fear.

He doesn’t understand how Sam can be so cavalier about this. Being gay in Lima is fucking _dangerous_. And Sam might have the protection of being an upperclassman and a jock, but Kurt is a sophomore in the Glee Club. Sam wears jeans and a letter jacket to school. Kurt wears Dolce and Gabbana.

If anyone is going to get hurt over this, it’s going to be Kurt.

In his mind’s eye, Puck sees Kurt with his arm in a sling, a split lip, large designer glasses hiding two black eyes, and he knows it’s more probable than improbable with the way Sam and Kurt are flaunting their relationship. It pisses him off and Puck shoves Kurt away from him, into the wall of lockers on their right instead of back into Sam, and storms off.

\---

Puck is not in a good frame of mind when he breaks the lock on the storage shed beside the football field.

He bypasses the football supplies, patiently waiting for next season, and carefully selects a metal baseball bat. Then he walks back into school and toward Finn’s locker. A few people give him odd stares when they see him carrying the bat, but no one Puck can’t glare into submission. He grabs Finn by the arm with a cursory, “C’mere,” and drags him out to the parking lot.

“Dude, what’s going on?” Finn asks, off-balance.

“I need a lookout,” Puck says simply.

Finn winces, glancing around the empty lot. “What are you going to do?”

Puck hefts the bat in one hand and then points it at the car Finn is standing next to. “I’m going to fuck up Blackwell’s car,” he replies.

Finn takes an automatic step away from the car. “What? Why?” he cries.

Puck shrugs. He doesn’t really know how to describe the swell of anger in his chest. It’s about 5% irritation, 25% jealousy and 70% this-is-what-could-happen-to-Kurt’s-face-or-his-leg-or-whatever-if-you-keep-flaunting-him-around-you-jackass.

“Look, man,” Finn hesitates. “I know you’re having some issues with the whole Sam and Kurt thing, but this is kind of crazy. I don’t think…”

“You don’t even have to do anything,” Puck interrupts. “Just keep a lookout in case anyone comes outside.” Sam’s car is a pretty old model. It doesn’t look like any alarms will start blaring when Puck hits it.

“Sam’s a nice guy and Kurt likes him…” Finn tries, but it’s exactly the wrong thing to say to Puck right now.

“I’m your best friend,” Puck cuts him off, and maybe it’s a shit card to play in this situation, to make Finn do something he doesn’t want to, something that might end up hurting Kurt, but it’s all Puck’s got to play right now. And the best friend card is like an Ace, nothing higher.

Finn gives him the puppydog-eyed look that probably made Rachel start following him around, but Puck is fucking resolute. “Watch the door,” he says, setting his stance and pulling the bat back behind his shoulders. Puck swings for the fence and Sam’s right taillight doesn’t stand a chance. It breaks with a satisfying crunch. Puck rights himself and does the same to the left light, which splinters apart even more spectacularly.

He’s thinking about leaving it at that, when the image of Kurt’s possible-probable split lip and blackened eyes flashes through his head and, before he even consciously realizes he’s doing it, Puck has shattered the rear window. After the smash of impact and the tinkle of broken glass, the silence echoes.

“Are you…done?” Finn asks quietly.

Puck steps away from the shower of pale glass, breathing hard. Pieces of smashed red taillight litter the ground like a broken heart.

\---

Puck spends the rest of the day not thinking about what he’s done. He skips lunch.

When the final bell rings out, he doesn’t run outside so he can surreptitiously watch Sam’s reaction. Puck goes to Glee like everything is normal, but his chest tightens when Kurt doesn’t show up. It throws off his singing and Finn is all fucked up from earlier too, so after a lecture from Rachel and an encouraging sentence from Mr. Schue, they break early.

Kurt is waiting for Puck at his car.

“Where were you at lunch today?” Kurt asks and Puck falters for a second because he hasn’t thought out a plausible lie. Beside him, Finn goes taut as a wire.

“Where were you at lunch today?” Kurt asks again. It sounds like an innocuous question, but his voice holds an undertone that makes Puck wary, like the question Kurt’s asking on the surface isn’t his real question. There’s a furious light in Kurt’s eyes that makes Puck suddenly grasp, _Oh shit, he knows._

The realization doesn’t come in time to save Puck from the wicked swing of Kurt’s ever-present messenger bag. It hits him right across the face and Puck goes down against the asphalt like a ton of bricks. Jesus Christ. Kurt must have the insane thirty pound Physics textbook he totes to fourth period in the bag and he’s clearly not been taking it home just for show. Puck wonders what chapter taught Kurt about force and velocity and what the fuck ever else you need to know to completely decimate a football player with one swing.

Or maybe Sam’s been giving him batting practice. Puck imagines Sam pressing up behind Kurt, their hands overlapping on the grip of the bat, and he smiles up at Kurt through the trickle of blood in the corner of his mouth. Right at that moment, he could honestly say he’s not even sorry.

Kurt stares at him, disgusted, and Puck can tell that he’s not sorry either, not at all sorry to see Puck on the ground with blood on his face. “Katie Arbor saw you do it,” he spits. “She was taking a half day so she could get to a dentist appointment and she saw you in the parking lot putting a bat through Sam’s window.”

He rounds on Finn, standing awkward and upset off to the side. “And you just stood there and watched him do it?” Kurt yells. Puck can see the threat of tears in his eyes, the wet whirl of anger and hurt, because Kurt was sure about Finn; he was sure that Finn was his friend. Puck’s emotions spin wildly and suddenly he is sorry, he’s so sorry, but he can’t say it.

Kurt looks between Finn and Puck like he can’t tell which of them is more worthy of his contempt. He scrubs a hand across his eyes and leaves, walking quickly toward the baseball diamond, repelled.

Puck waits on the ground for a moment for Finn to offer him a hand up, but Finn is silent and still, so Puck levers himself up alone. “You’re a shit lookout,” he tells Finn.

\---

Kurt doesn’t even look at him for two whole weeks.

Puck wishes he knew what happened to his previously awesome denial skills so he could tell himself it doesn’t sting.

\---

Fifteen days of Puck ghosting along beside Kurt, who refuses to acknowledge his presence, ends when Kurt stops Puck halfway to Algebra and says, “Look. I’m not sure how it happened, but in all honesty, up until two weeks ago, I actually considered you one of my better friends.”

Puck opens his mouth to say something, but Kurt keeps talking. “And while I am still _incredibly pissed_ ” –he punctuates with a glare– “about that stunt you pulled, I would sort of hate to lose that. And even though you haven’t said that you’re _sorry_ ” –another pointed glare– “the fact that you keep silently following me around like a beaten dog indicates to me that you might be.”

“I…might be,” Puck forces out, because he’s never been good at apologies, but he doesn’t think he can take another day of Kurt’s silent treatment either.

“Fine,” Kurt says, and Puck has a moment of glorious hope that that’s where this will end. They’ll behave like normal guys who fight and then nod at each other in some vague semblance of apology and _never, ever speak of it again_. Then Kurt continues, “But this weird thing between you and Sam can’t keep going on. I don’t really understand why you’re angry with Sam and not with me. It’s not like he turned me gay or something.”

Puck wants to say, it’s not about the gay thing. He hates Sam personally, for having something that Puck wants.

Kurt grabs Puck’s wrist and turns them in the opposite direction of Algebra class. “Where are we going?” Puck asks, surprised, because he’s discovered that Kurt is one of those smart kids who never skips class even though he’d probably still be able to maintain straight A’s.

Kurt doesn’t reply, just drags Puck down the hall and into an empty room that’s used for Shop class. Sam is sitting at one of the worktables fiddling with a drill press.

“What is this, some kind of intervention?” Puck asks, annoyed. Thank God at least they didn’t decide to have an actual counseling session with Ms. Pillsbury and her table of pamphlets. Puck already has one titled _Divorce: Why Your Parents Stopped Loving You_ and another that reads _When Being A Pool Boy Becomes Statutory Rape_ , which he suspects was designed and printed for him specially. He doesn’t need _So You’re Bisexual and Your Gay Crush Already Has A Boyfriend: A Guide_.

His only comfort in this shit situation is that Sam looks as uncomfortable as he does.

“Pretty much,” Kurt replies, picking at his designer scarf. He folds his hands together. “All right,” Kurt says to Puck. “Puck, you obviously have an issue with Sam, as evidenced by you being a complete jerk and smashing up his car.” Kurt turns to Sam, who looks pretty pissed to even be in the same room with Puck. Puck wonders how much the car repairs are going to run him. “Sam, you probably have some issues about the fact that Puck smashed up your car. _I_ clearly haven’t been a mitigating factor, so I’m just going to let you two talk this out alone.”

Before Puck can process that last sentence, Kurt has practically run out of the room and Puck hears the click of a lock behind him. “How the hell does Kurt have the keys to this classroom?” Puck wonders aloud, impressed.

“Please,” Sam scoffs, not looking at Puck, “This is Kurt’s fifth period class and he’s practically Mr. Stanford’s TA.”

A prickly silence falls and Puck alternates between glaring at Sam, who refuses to look up at him, and a shoddily-made birdhouse probably fashioned by an awkward freshman who wanted to impress girls by telling them he took Shop. Twenty minutes later, the door is still locked and Puck figures he’s not getting out of here without at least some attempt at conversation with Sam, so he breaks the strained silence with, “So, I fucked up your car.”

Sam’s hand twitches toward a hammer and Puck thinks that maybe Kurt made a tactical error by choosing a room full of sharp, heavy objects for Puck and Sam to have their throwdown in. “Yeah. And I didn’t fucking appreciate it,” Sam replies tightly. “Want to tell me why the hell you did it?”

Puck kind of does. Well, not the whole thing about how he’s bisexual and his gay crush already has a boyfriend, who happens to be Sam, but the part about Lima being a dangerous place to be gay and how Kurt’s going to end up with black eyes and mental scars and it’s going to be Sam’s fault.

“We aren’t in San Francisco or one of those states where gay couples can get married,” Puck says heatedly, the wash of anger he felt with the bat in his hands rushing back through him. “We’re in motherfucking Lima, Ohio and I’m not about to let Kurt get hurt because you can’t keep it in your pants.”

Sam stares. “Are you saying smashing up my car was your repressed jock way of telling me to cut down on the PDAs with Kurt?”

Puck doesn’t really know how to explain things any better and suddenly he doesn’t want to go along with this stupid intervention thing anymore. He glances around the classroom. There’s a backsaw on one of the tables he could probably use to get the door open…

“Hey,” Sam says, close, and Puck jumps a little when he feels a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I understand where you’re coming from. You think I haven’t gotten prank calls from homophobic assholes or had someone piss in my gym shoes? I have. And Kurt has. And it sucks. It scares the crap out of me that things might escalate. But I’m not ashamed of liking Kurt and I’m not going to act like I am.”

Puck is about to say, _I don’t want you to be ashamed, I just want you to be careful_ , but a key clicks in the lock and Kurt swings the classroom door open looking apprehensive.

Puck figures they’ve cleared the air enough for one day. “We’re cool,” Puck tells Kurt and Sam nods beside him.

\---

Spring brings baseball season and Kurt drags Mercedes and Tina to all the home games to watch Sam play. Puck trails along after them, proclaiming an interest in the sport. Mercedes gives him a well-honed _bitch, please_ look but he doesn’t think she’s figured out his true motivations.

There are only two stands of metal bleachers set into the grass alongside the baseball diamond. Most of the parents who can make it to five o’clock games bring folding lawn chairs or blankets, and the kids from school bunch together on the bleachers. Puck and the others always climb to the top row.

During his first at bat, Sam grounds out to second base and Puck hides his smile in a cough. Kurt claps anyway and calls out, “You’ll get the next one!” supportively. Sam gives him a wave and a smile and walks back behind the wire caging with the rest of the varsity team, his hardwood bat perched easily on one shoulder.

“So I was watching the Cleveland v. Atlanta game last night on TV and Gregg pitched a-- wait, no,” Kurt says, reaching into his messenger bag and flipping open a notebook full of names and numbers, like he’s reviewing for a test. “ _Wood_ pitches for the Indians. Gregg pitches for the Cubs.”

“Hold up,” Mercedes says, pointing at the notebook. “You’re _actively_ learning about baseball for this guy?”

“Y-You don’t even know the rules for f-football, and you’re on the team,” Tina puts in skeptically.

Kurt tosses his head carelessly. “All I have to do is kick the ball through the giant fork at the end of the field. I don’t need to know the rest of the rules.”

“The ‘giant fork’ is also called a _goalpost_ , Hummel,” Puck says, pained on behalf of the sport.

Kurt doesn’t deign to respond. He turns to grab his bottled water off the bleacher below them and accidentally dislodges his notebook from its place on his knees. A few squares of colored paper slip out from between the pages. Kurt tries to gather them up without anyone seeing, but Mercedes is quicker. “Baseball cards?” she shrieks, holding up Grady Sizemore accusingly. “You bought _baseball cards_? How serious is this?”

“Careful!” Kurt snaps, snatching the card back. “That’s a rookie.”

“Oh my God,” Mercedes says. Tina just stares, shaking her head in disbelief.

On the field, Sam’s bat makes a loud _crack!_ and the ball sails into left field, dropping just short of the fence. Sam rounds the bases, dust puffing up behind his cleats, and slides into third base like a pro. Kurt stands up to cheer. Puck mimes clapping with his hands, teeth clenched. He can’t stop wondering whether Sam’s gotten to third base with Kurt yet.

\---

Puck’s reversing his beat up green Honda out of his parking space when something under the hood makes an angry noise and the whole car jumps backward quickly.

Puck slams the brake pedal and the car stops, idling quietly like it hasn’t just had some kind of spaz attack. After a tense minute where nothing dramatic happens, Puck eases the car into drive and idles slowly forward. The car does another quick jump, forward this time, like it’s been pushed from behind. “Holy shit!” Puck yells, hitting the brakes.

“That thing your car is doing is called an idle surge,” a voice says off to his right, and when Puck looks over, Kurt Hummel is staring at him with one hip cocked out to the side.

“What would you know about it?” Puck snaps. He can hardly afford to put gas in his car. It’s going to be hell to try and scrape together enough money to have some part replaced.

Kurt just rolls his eyes and brushes his bangs off his forehead. “How about how to fix it?”

 _Whatever_ , Puck thinks. If Kurt can really fix it, that means he doesn’t have to take it to a mechanic and get screwed out of hundreds of dollars. And if Kurt wants to bend over the hood of his car, Puck doesn’t have a problem with that either.

“Put it in park,” Kurt calls, slinging his messenger bag into his own car and coming over. He props open the hood, bends over the engine, and runs an assessing eye over all the metal parts that Puck’s never known what to do with past adding coolant and checking the oil. Then he runs an assessing eye over Puck. It’s kind of like a dream Puck had once, up until Kurt says, “I need to borrow your jacket. I don’t want to get any grease on my outfit.”

That’s actually okay too as far as Puck’s concerned, because several of his other dreams have involved Kurt wearing his letterman’s jacket. He strips it off and passes it over to Kurt who slips his arms into the sleeves and snaps the buttons all the way up to the collar. The jacket is about two sizes too big for him and Kurt looks totally dwarfed by it. It’s so fucking adorable that Puck has to look away.

“I’m going to have to clean out the IAC valve,” Kurt says, after he disconnects a metal part. “Do you have any aerosol throttle cleaner?”

Puck’s never even heard of throttle cleaner. It must show on his face, because Kurt tosses something at him. Puck snatches the flash of silver out of the air automatically, and when he opens his fist, he finds Kurt’s keys in his palm. “I’ve got a mechanics kit in my trunk. Just bring the whole thing over,” Kurt says and bends back over the engine wearing Puck’s fucking letterman’s jacket.

Puck practically sprints over Kurt’s SUV, because his face is flushed and his cock is so hard he can’t resist pressing it roughly through his jeans while he half-collapses against Kurt’s SUV, the cool windows leeching some of the heat from his cheeks. God. He takes a few deep, steadying breaths before he pops the trunk and dutifully carries the heavy-ass mechanics kit over to Kurt.

Kurt digs out a spray bottle and shakes it up while Puck tries not to think about how much it looks like a can of whipped cream. “Okay,” Kurt says, obliviously. “I’m going to need you to rev the engine. Keep it between 1000 and 1500 rpm on the tachometer.”

Puck looks at him blankly. “Dude, I have no idea what you just said.”

Kurt lifts an eyebrow. “Go sit behind the wheel…,” he says slowly.

“I got that part,” Puck says, rolling his eyes and opening the driver’s side door. “What the hell is a tachometer?”

Kurt sighs and walks over to the window. “This is so sad,” he says. “You know what the speedometer is, right? That gauge you crank up to 90 after you and the rest of the football team have nailed all my lawn furniture to my roof?”

“Okay, fine,” Puck says, quickly, wanting to get off the topic of his consistent asshattery from grades 3 to 9.

“The tachometer,” Kurt continues patiently, “is the gauge beside that. The one that only goes up to 8.”

“Okay,” Puck says again, locating the gauge. “But I thought you said you wanted me to rev it up to 1000. How am I supposed to do that when it only goes up to 8?”

“Each 1 represents 1000 rpm -that’s engine revolutions per minute- so just keep it between the 1 and the 2 and we should be fine. I want you to hold if for ten seconds,” Kurt says, walking back over to the front of the car.

Puck starts the engine and raises his voice to ask, “Ready?”

“Go!” Kurt shouts and Puck presses the gas pedal softly, watching the needle on the tachometer inch up to 1. He counts to ten and lets off the pedal. “Good?” Puck calls, turning off the engine.

“Yeah,” Kurt says, coming back around to the window. “Just stay where you are. We’ve got to let the cleaner soak in for a couple minutes and then do it again.”

“Why do you know how to do this in the first place?” Puck asks, curious.

“My Dad’s a mechanic,” Kurt answers. “He took me in to the garage a lot when I was growing up. I could install an engine by the time I was nine. Dad was so proud.”

“That’s…really cool,” Puck says, honestly.

Kurt smiles, “I think he was less impressed by the fashion accessories I designed out of ignition wires and socket caps.”

Puck laughs. He’s kind of glad that his car fucked up, because he hasn’t felt this happy in a long time, hasn’t ever had Kurt’s smile focused on him unless it was meant to be sharp and cutting. He’d like to say, _hop in, I’ll give you a ride home_ , but Kurt’s got a car ten feet away. He’d like to say, _let’s drive up to Champagne Point_ , but Kurt’s got Sam. So Puck doesn’t say anything, and Kurt says, “Okay, let’s do the same thing again and then I’ll reattach the valve and check the exhaust.”

They do two more rounds of “Ready?” “Go!” while Puck revs the engine, and when Kurt’s satisfied that white smoke has stopped coming out the exhaust pipe, he hands back Puck’s jacket and says, “I’ve got to get home. Let me know if it gives you any more trouble.”

“Thanks, man,” Puck replies and Kurt smiles at him one more time before he drives away.

When he makes it home, Puck heads straight up to his room and sprawls across the bed. He jerks off, quick and dirty, to the image of Kurt bent over the hood of his car, wearing just Puck’s letterman’s jacket. Puck imagines himself behind Kurt, whispering into his ear, “Ready?” and Kurt smiles and moans, “Go!”

\---

When Puck gets to lunch on Wednesday, he’s just in time to see Sam offer Kurt a long-stemmed red rose and ask, “Would you go to Prom with me?”

 _This shit is not cool_ , Puck thinks. Because everyone knows what happens after Prom. Guys rent hotel rooms and buy condoms and Kurt looks so innocent when he accepts Sam’s rose and says, “I’d love to go to Prom with you. Plus, it’s the perfect excuse to buy this fantastic Versace tux I’ve been eyeing.”

Puck needs to get in on this. Unfortunately, freshmen and sophomores aren’t allowed to go to the Junior Prom unless they get asked by an upperclassman, so Puck is kind of screwed.

His problem resolves itself in the form of Sarah Gorman, a junior without a date. Sarah is pretty enough, with straight blonde hair and C-cups, but she’s also got the reputation of being the school bicycle. She was supposedly on the Cheerios her freshman year until she slept her way through the entire football team, half the basketball team, and the guy who did shot-put for track and field and got kicked off the squad and labeled a Cheeri-ho.

She’s actually the kind of girl Puck would have gone for up until recently, but now something about her just makes him feel vaguely depressed. Either way, Puck figures beggars can’t be choosers and he’s planning on ditching her as soon as they’re through the door, so he sucks it up and asks her to Prom. Her mouth drops open at first, but she recovers quickly and gives him a simpering, “Of course, baby. I’ll take good care of you,” that makes him almost regret the invitation.

The Prom is only a few days away, so Puck scrambles to get a pair of tickets, order a corsage—because there’s ditching your date and there’s just being an asshole—and rent a tux.

He picks Sarah up on Saturday night and she giggles when he slides the corsage of red roses onto her wrist. Her eyes are made up with a jarringly bright shade of pink and her dress is blue and low-cut, pale rhinestones glittering in the neckline to bring even more attention to her breasts. Puck takes a minute to admire her, but in his head there’s a voice that sounds suspiciously like Kurt saying, “Fuchsia eyeliner with a cerulean dress? Tacky, very tacky.”

They drive to McKinley with the radio playing between them to offset the awkward silence, and it’s a relief to arrive at the school and step through a curtain of green streamers and into the Prom. Sarah waves exaggeratedly at a girl across the room and Puck nods hellos to a few guys he knows from the football team.

Tina and Artie are there too, which is a surprise, because somehow Puck never realized that Artie was a junior instead of a sophomore like the rest of them. When they take the traditional couple’s picture, beside a cut out pirate ship to go with the dance theme, Tina sits down in Artie’s wheelchair with him so she’s at his level, perched lightly on his thighs.

Puck wishes things were that easy, that Kurt would just fall into his lap and smile.

They have to pass the picture station to reach the actual dance floor and Puck grimaces impatiently. The photographer has to take his and Sarah’s picture three times. The first time, Puck isn’t looking at the camera. His eyes are searching out Kurt and finding him and Sam together, sipping punch at a far table. In the second picture, he’s not smiling.

The third time, Puck forces his lips into an upward curve so they can just get this the hell over with. From the look on the photographer’s face, Puck knows his half-assed attempt at a smile came out more of a stiff grimace, like rigor mortis, but the man waves them away to make room for the next couple.

Sarah tries to tug him over toward her friends, but Puck heads straight for Kurt’s table so she trails along behind him, pouting. Kurt sees them coming a few feet from the table and his eyebrows fly up in surprise.

“Hey,” Puck grunts, plopping down in an empty chair. He nods at Sam, who salutes him with a plastic punch cup.

“Hello,” Kurt replies. “I didn’t know you were coming to Prom. Who’s your lovely date?”

“This is Sarah,” Puck introduces perfunctorily. He sweeps an approving look over Kurt. Kurt’s tux is more navy than black and there’s a strange shine to it that makes Puck want to run a finger over the material to see what it feels like. The jacket is closed with a single, shiny silver button and Kurt is sporting a flawlessly tied bowtie. All in all, it’s a more classic look than some of Kurt’s eclectic school outfits.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kurt says courteously to Sarah. “Do you two have a class together?”

“Oh, no,” Sarah laughs, pitchy. “We’re just getting to know each other.” She leans in close and adds slyly, “I think we’ll know each other rather well by the end of the night.”

Kurt’s smile goes a little frozen and Puck winces. He came to the Prom to make sure Sam didn’t pull anything with Kurt, not to drop even further in Kurt’s estimation.

“Do you want to grab something to drink?” Puck asks Sarah to get them past the uncomfortable moment. He’s hoping she’ll walk with him to the refreshment table and then be distracted by her friends, who are sitting together a few tables away, so he can sneak back to Kurt alone.

Sarah destroys the plan with a toss of her long blonde hair and a coy, “That’d be great, babe. I’ll have some punch,” so Puck has to leave her at the table with Kurt and Sam to play waiter.

When he gets back, Tina and Artie have joined them and Kurt is retying Arties bowtie for him. “You have to start out with one side longer than the other or one side the bow ends up bigger,” Kurt lectures, his fingers looping the fabric deftly and tugging the finished product straight.

“Thanks,” Artie says, tipping his chin down to look.

“Even more d-dashing than before,” Tina praises and Artie blushes. He’s wearing a pair of rimless eyeglasses and they make his face look a little empty since Puck’s so used to seeing the thick black frames.

‘Tik Tok’ by Ke$ha comes on over the sound system and Sarah squeals and grabs Puck’s hand in a crushing grip. “I love this song! Let’s dance!” She pulls Puck up with surprising strength and drags him onto the floor where a few couples are jumping around in a spastic approximation of dancing. Puck goes with it because there’s not much else he can do, but he puts his hands firmly on Sarah’s hips and keeps a solid hand span between them when she starts trying to grind against him.

Kurt and Sam appear beside them on the dance floor for the next song and after a few minutes the warm flush of color that Puck always looks for when they’re practicing moves for Glee brightens Kurt’s pale cheeks.

They cycle through a few more fast songs and more couples keep coming out onto the floor, so everyone gets a little crushed together. Puck catches a glance of Miss Pillsbury and Mr. Schuester standing along a wall chaperoning. Miss Pillsbury looks like she wants to come onto the dance floor and measure six inches between each couple.

Eventually, the music starts to wind down and a slow song comes on. Puck begs off with an excuse of running to the bathroom and by the time he gets back, Sarah has latched on to an unsuspecting junior who looks like the punch he’s been drinking was probably spiked. They sway together tipsily and Puck sits back down at the table they were occupying earlier to watch all the couples dance.

Tina in slung across Artie’s lap, arms around his neck and legs over one armrest on his wheelchair, while Artie works the wheels to spin them in slow circles.

Kurt and Sam are turning in an endless three step. Kurt rests his cheek on Sam’s shoulder but his eyes stay open.

Puck steels his courage, and when the music changes to another slow love song, he fetches up beside Sam and asks if he can step in. “Sure,” Sam says, relinquishing Kurt easily. Puck almost wishes Sam would look at him more like a threat.

Kurt gives him an odd look, like he doesn’t quite understand what Puck is up to, but he fits against Puck’s side like a key in a lock. Puck puts an arm around Kurt’s waist and takes Kurt’s right hand in his. He hopes his palm doesn’t start to sweat. “You look nice tonight,” Puck says quietly, starting to lead, and Kurt smiles up at him.

“Thank you. You clean up nice yourself,” he compliments. “I’m really surprised you came to the Prom. I didn’t think it was your kind of thing. But it was fun, right?

“Yeah,” Puck replies, surprised to find that he’s telling the truth. There’s something soft about tonight and, with Kurt in his arms, Puck doesn’t find it so hard to apologize for things. “Look, I just wanted to say I’m sorry I’ve been kind of a dick about you and Sam.”

“So this is some kind of pity-dance?” Kurt asks sharply, cutting off Puck’s apology. He goes tense in Puck’s arms.

“What? No,” Puck answers quickly. “I just…wanted to say that. And I’m glad you’re happy. Really.”

Kurt stares at him for a full ten seconds and Puck feels his hands getting ready to break out in a sweat, but Kurt must find what he’s looking for because he relaxes against Puck a moment later. “Thanks,” he says softly. “I appreciate that.” And after that, they just sway in slow circles. Green and blue Chinese lanterns hang from the ceiling like bubbles.

When the song ends, Kurt glances over at the clock above a life-size cardboard cut-out of Jack Sparrow. “I should probably be getting home. Dad set my curfew at 12:30 and if I’m not back on time he’ll come after Sam with the shotgun.”

Puck feels a flow of relief. He’s been imagining Sam taking Kurt to the Holiday Inn and saying, “You’re beautiful,” and Kurt replying, “I’m ready,” and that’s about the point his inner vision whites out with rage. He much prefers the image of Mr. Hummel cocking a shotgun and Sam sprinting down Kurt’s driveway.

Puck guides Kurt over to their table with a hand at the small of his back. Sam gives him an opaque look.

“Let me get a picture of you guys before we go,” Sam says, pulling out a digital camera. Puck loops an arm around Kurt’s shoulders, leans toward him, and smiles while the camera flashes, holding the moment.

\---

Monday afternoon Sam doesn’t show up at lunch.

When Puck asks Kurt where he is, Kurt just replies, “Study hall,” morose and subdued. He’s eating a Jell-O chocolate pudding cup that Mercedes offered him from her lunch even though Kurt usually decries the things as both fattening and intrinsically inferior to the boxed pudding mix. The delicate way he grips his plastic spoon draws Puck’s attention to the palm of his hand and the darker strip of skin in the center where the jagged piece of glass cut through weeks and weeks ago.

“Let me see your hand,” Puck says and Kurt reaches out across the table, bemused.

Puck turns Kurt’s hurt hand palm up, and runs his thumb gently down the healing pink scar. Kurt stares at him, but he doesn’t pull away.

Puck suddenly realizes that he’s sort of holding Kurt’s hand in the middle of the school cafeteria and he glances around uneasily to see if anyone else has noticed. He catches Tina’s eyes, but she breaks the gaze quickly, turning toward Rachel with an odd half-smile lingering on her face.

Puck drops Kurt’s hand like it burns and Kurt’s knuckles rap against the table, gunshot-loud in Puck’s ears.

\---

They’re in the practice room for Glee debating whether to sing ‘Seasons of Love’ or ‘Finale B’ from Rent when a cell phone goes off, playing a slightly tinny version of ‘Single Ladies.’

Kurt turns away to dig through his bag. He glances at the screen and shrugs when he sees that it’s lit up with an unfamiliar number. “Hello?” he answers. “Yes, this is Kurt Hummel.”

There’s a short pause and then Kurt makes a noise like he’s been stabbed, something gasping and wet, and his cell phone clatters to the floor. Kurt dives after it and Puck can see his pale hands shaking when he lifts it back to his ear. “Hello? Hello? Shit!” Kurt yells, realizing the call has dropped. He lunges for his bag and pulls out his keys while the rest of the Glee Club stares in shock. Kurt is always calm and together and Puck’s never heard him swear for anything.

Kurt’s hands are shaking so hard his keys are jangling against each other like wind chimes. He looks at them uncomprehendingly and then up at the rest of Glee with frantic eyes. “Can someone drive me to the hospital?”

“I will,” Puck says quickly, before Mercedes or Finn can jump in. Kurt grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the music room and then sprints down the hall about five times faster than he ever did during football practice, so fast Puck has a hard time keeping up with him.

They’re in Kurt’s car and on the road in two minutes flat, with Puck at the wheel and Kurt stock-still shotgun.

“Do you want to, like, call your Mom or something?” Puck asks, worried. Kurt looks practically catatonic and Puck does not know how to deal with this. He can hardly deal with normal Kurt.

“My Mom is dead,” Kurt replies blankly, and Puck wants to smack himself because Oh my God, how could he possibly make this worse? Kurt turns to look at him, eyes huge and wet. “Can you drive faster?” he chokes and Puck puts a brick foot on the gas pedal and runs a red light.

At the hospital, Puck parks the SUV illegally outside the Emergency Room entrance because he can see Kurt’s about to jump out of the moving car and no way in hell is Puck going to just drop him off alone and go search for a parking spot.

Kurt still ends up ten steps ahead of him and his momentum sends him practically crashing into the reception desk. “I’m looking for-,” Kurt gasps, cutting off halfway through and running towards a voice yelling, “I’m not going for any testing before you let me call my kid to tell him I’m okay!”

“Dad!” Kurt cries, ripping aside a privacy curtain.

The man behind the curtain is seated on a gurney, holding an icepack up to his face. “Kurt!” he says, reaching out an arm. Puck can see Kurt’s ready to throw himself at his father, but his eyes skim over him first, cataloguing broken fingers and a bruised face. “I’m fine, Kurt,” his Dad soothes. “I’m fine. C’mere.”

It’s like the floodgates finally open, and Kurt’s sobbing into his father’s shoulder while the man pets his hair and reassures him over and over that he’s fine. Just whiplash and seatbelt bruises.

“We need to do a head CT,” the nurse says apologetically. “To make sure there are no complications with the concussion.”

“I’m fine,” Mr. Hummel says, glaring. “I need to take my son home.”

“No! No, Dad, I want you to do the test. Promise you’ll do the test,” Kurt says, clutching his father’s good hand. “You have to be sure,” he babbles. “You have to be really sure. Natasha Richardson fell on a ski slope and she thought she was fine and she—she died! Dad, I don’t want you to—”

“Kurt. Kurt, okay!” Mr. Hummel acquiesces. “I’ll get the test done. I just don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Puck says, stepping forward.

Mr. Hummel looks him up and down. “And you are?” he asks.

“Noah Puckerman. Puck,” Puck replies. “I’m on the football team with Kurt. And Glee,” he tacks on hastily. Glee still feels like something he has to admit to sometimes.

Mr. Hummel’s eyes sharpen and he turns to Kurt. “Is this your new boyfriend?”

Kurt gives a watery laugh. “No, Dad. Puck isn’t my boyfriend.”

Puck has to glance away for a second, sure the expression on his face is both guilty and stung. When he looks back, Mr. Hummel is watching him thoughtfully. Puck thinks someone with a probable concussion shouldn’t be allowed to be so freakishly perceptive.

“All right,” Mr. Hummel says slowly, letting Kurt help ease him down into a wheelchair. “Why don’t you boys wait together in the cafeteria? Get something to eat and I’ll meet you there when they’re finished with me.”

In the cafeteria, Puck tries to get Kurt to pick something, chicken noodle soup or beef ravioli or saltine crackers, but Kurt just walks over to a table and collapses into a hard-backed plastic chair. Puck follows him, silent.

Kurt looks broken, hurt in the way dumpster-throwing and name-calling and slushies in the face never made him. He puts his head down on his crossed arms and Puck doesn’t have anything to say, so he scoots his chair right up close, aligns himself so their legs are pressed together, from ankle to thigh.

\---

Kurt is absent from school the next day.

Puck spends most of the day remembering the careful drive home from the hospital, the way Kurt hugged his father, then went to his room and curled up, tiny, on his king size bed, face pressed into a pillow. He can’t stop wondering if he should have just stayed, no matter what Kurt said, if maybe he should have called Sam regardless of his own issues.

After school, Puck skips Glee and drives halfway to Kurt’s house before he chickens out and tells himself he’s respecting Kurt’s space.

\---

“I have a date on Friday,” Becky announces that night at dinner.

Puck stares at his sister, his little sister, who is twelve fucking years old and should absolutely _not_ be dating the horny, sagging-jeans-wearing punks Puck sees hanging out on the sidewalks playing hackysack when he drops her off at school in the mornings.

At least this gives him something new to freak out over, Puck thinks.

\---

Thursday morning, his phone rings at a quarter to seven, and Puck answers it with a muzzy, “Hello?”

“You know how I told you I could install an engine by age nine?” Kurt’s voice says over the line, sounding a little manic.

“Kurt?” Puck says, waking up for real.

“I also knew how to uninstall them,” Kurt continues without stopping for breath. “Last night, I had a nightmare that my Dad actually died in the accident,” Kurt’s voice cracks slightly and Puck’s heart clenches. “And when I woke up, I was freaked out, and I kind of ran down to the garage and took the engine out of my car to make sure my Dad wouldn’t be able to drive it. So this morning, my Dad came downstairs and found me with engine grease all over my pajamas and my car engine on the worktable instead of under the hood…”

“I’m telling this out of order,” Kurt stops, frustrated. He takes a deep breath. “Dad’s car is in the shop being fixed. The plan was he’d take my car to work and drop me off at school on the way. Only now the car has no engine for the next couple hours, which means I need a different ride to school or I’m going to miss my English exam.” Kurt pauses. “I was wondering if you could give me a ride?”

Puck’s immediate response to the phrase, “give me a ride,” is always “absolutely, yes,” so that’s what comes out of his mouth. He feels bad about it a second later, because Kurt is obviously traumatized and just told him an extremely personal story, but when Puck thinks about it, his answer would have been the same anyway. “I’ll have to pick you up a little early,” he adds. “I need to drop my sister off at the middle school on the way.”

“That’s fine,” Kurt says, relief in his voice. “I’ll be ready. Thanks.”

Half an hour later, Puck pulls into Kurt’s driveway.

Usually, Puck would just honk the horn to get whoever he’s picking up out of the house, but he knows it’s impolite and if he ever wants to date Kurt, he needs Mr. Hummel to not completely despise him. He remembers Kurt mentioning a shotgun. So he turns off the car, taking the keys with him in case Becky gets any ideas, and goes up the walk to knock quietly on the front door.

Kurt answers right away, looking less than his usual perfectly attired self. Puck can see engine grease under his nails when he looks. “Hi,” Kurt greets him breathlessly. “I’m ready.”

As he’s pulling the door closed behind him hurriedly, a hand catches it and brings it back open to reveal Kurt’s Dad. Mr. Hummel spares Puck a brief nod and moves his hand from the door to Kurt’s shoulder. “Kurt,” he says, softly. “You don’t have to go in to school today if you don’t feel up to it. I can call you in sick again.”

Kurt looks conflicted for a moment before he says, “No. No, I have to go back sometime.”

“All right,” Mr. Hummel accepts, but before Kurt can turn away, he pulls him into a hug. “Everything’s going to be okay, Kurt.”

“Okay,” Kurt agrees, quiet. His eyes are huge and hopeful and doubting. They linger on his father’s splinted fingers and the yellowing bruises on his face. Everything about Kurt seems fragile and Puck wants to guide him to the car with a hand on the small of his back, but he feels like Kurt might crack apart if Puck actually touches him, so he just lets his hand hover awkwardly over the space it wants to rest on.

Mr. Hummel watches them until Kurt is tucked safely into the passenger seat.

“I have a date on Friday,” Becky announces as soon as the car starts moving. Puck wonders if she’s going to inform everyone she sees that day.

“Really?” Kurt asks, interested. Turning around in his seat, he gives Becky a quick once over that Puck would probably have to punch him for if he weren’t gay. “What are you planning to wear?”

Becky’s mouth drops open soundlessly, eyes wide like a baby deer in the headlights. “I….I don’t know,” she answers, panicky.

“Well, where are you two going?” Kurt considers, prosaically.

“Out to dinner and then a movie,” Becky says, which is more than Puck had been able to get out of her after an hour of badgering.

Puck isn’t sure how, but by the time the middle school comes into view, Kurt and Becky have exchanged cell phone numbers and planned an after dinner shopping trip to buy her a new first date outfit.

Puck’s kind of annoyed that, twenty minutes after meeting him, his little sister has gotten closer to dating Kurt than he has.

Becky comes home that night with a bright, flowing sundress which Puck knows she could never afford even from months of saving her allowance. He thinks, from anyone else, he would abhor the implication of charity, but the dress is cheerful and young and Becky practically glows with happiness. Kurt’s smile is just as pleased and Puck wonders if maybe, alone in his large house, he has wished for siblings.

On Friday, Kurt comes over two hours before Becky’s big date to help her get ready. The doorbell rings and she flies down the stairs with her hair tied up in intricate braids. When she smiles, her lips are smooth and tinted lightly red. “Seriously, you’re wearing lipstick?” Puck accuses.

“Cherry chapstick,” Kurt says, from the top of the stairs, his voice somehow both fond and condescending. “She’s only twelve.”

Puck opens the door and puts the fear of God into Becky’s date, a shy, unassuming boy with black hair and scuffed shoes. He looks like he could be Jewish. The kid stutters out an obviously rehearsed, “My name is James. It’s nice to meet you,” before Becky grabs his hand and drags him down the walk, away from Puck’s threats and into a blue mini-van with his mother at the wheel.

Before the van door closes, James calls out, “I-I’ll have her home by ten o’clock. Sir.”

“You’d better, kid!” Puck yells back and, beside him, Kurt laughs and laughs and laughs.

\---

This is about the point Puck decides he’s done with this shit. No one else gets to have Kurt.

He catches Sam by the shoulder the next day, and drags him into an empty classroom. He’s not quite sure what he was planning to do after that, so it’s a good thing Sam starts them off with, “Kurt and I broke up two weeks ago.”

Puck stares. He expects Sam to look stricken, ill, the way Puck felt those weeks when Kurt didn’t even look at him anymore. Sam rolls his eyes. “We’re still friends,” he continues. “It was a mutual thing. We cared about each other, but it wasn’t like it was some kind of epic love affair.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Puck asks, replaying the past two weeks in his head. Looking at it in hindsight, there _had_ been a distinct lack of hand holding and molestation in the boy’s bathroom.

“Because you seem like you’ve been waiting for your chance to have an epic love affair with him,” Sam says baldly.

“What? I…what?” Puck stutters.

“You’ve been waiting for your chance with him,” Sam repeats, mercifully leaving off the part about an epic love affair. “Don’t even try to deny it. I saw you dance with him at Prom.” Puck smiles, soft and unintentional, and Sam looks vindicated. He lifts a hand up and ticks points off on his fingers. “You busted the windows out my car,” he says sardonically, putting down his index finger. “You also looked ready to punch me in the face at any given second, and Kurt told me that hasn’t been your default expression for over a year now. And you stare at him all the time. Particularly his mouth,” he adds devastatingly, dropping his pinky into his palm.

Puck looks at Sam’s empty fist. It’s kind of a lot of damning evidence now that Puck thinks about it. He wonders if everyone knows. Probably just everyone except Kurt. That’s the way these things always seem to work.

 _Holy shit_ , Puck thinks, all of a sudden. _Two weeks_. It’s been _two weeks_ since Kurt and Sam broke up. What if he already has another boyfriend? Puck is so not going through this awkward dance a second time. He turns abruptly to charge off and find Kurt.

“Puckerman,” Sam calls him back. He looks Puck straight in the eye and says, “I’m serious when I say Kurt and I are still friends. Fuck this up and I will kick your ass harder than Kurt kicks a field goal.”

Puck’s used to mostly feeling a sort of resentful burn toward Sam, but he has to admit the guy’s just earned a little respect, maybe even a little fear from him. He’s pretty sure Sam keeps a baseball bat in the trunk of his car, and Puck’s seen him hit enough home runs to know he can use it with a good degree of force and accuracy.

Regardless, he doesn’t plan to fuck this up.

\---

Puck jogs through the empty halls and skids to a halt outside of Klusner’s second period Algebra class, where he should be occupying the desk in the far corner, learning about integers or some shit, and suddenly realizes that he has to get Kurt to actually date him.

He imagines taking Kurt to a movie. Prime make-out spot. Maybe if it’s scary he’ll slide an arm around Kurt’s back and Kurt will grip his hand tight and, if their eyes are going to be closed anyway, they might as well lean towards each other and… The image pops like a bubble as Puck imagines actually asking Kurt to the movie. He sees Kurt tapping a wing-tipped shoe impatiently and raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow as Puck stutters.

The bell rings and the Algebra class rushes out, pushing Puck back out of the doorway. Kurt trails out at the end of the line and raises an eyebrow at seeing Puck hovering uneasily outside the room after skipping class.

It’s so reminiscent of the awkward date-asking scene Puck just concocted in his mind that Puck spins around and darts away without saying a word, leaving Kurt staring after him, confused.

\---

It’s incredibly demoralizing to have to get advice from your potential boyfriend’s ex on how to ask him on a date, but so far Sam is pretty much _the_ authority on getting a date with Kurt. And also, Puck doesn’t want Sam to come after him with a baseball bat because he’s actually managed to sort of fuck this up without even speaking to Kurt.

Sam opens his mouth and closes it wordlessly. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean?” he finally gets out, staring at Puck like he’s thinking of sending him down to Nurse Betty for a neuro check.

So Puck repeats, “How do I ask out Kurt?”

“Okay…,” Sam says slowly. He starts walking down the hall and Puck sort of has to follow him. He can’t help but notice they’re going in the direction of the infirmary. “I guess I was under the impression that it was pretty self-explanatory. And that you’d done it before. I mean, not with Kurt, but with someone.”

Actually, Puck really hasn’t. There’s always been lemonade and a crooked finger and the smell of chlorine involved. Or Natty Light. He’s never really asked for anything before.

“Well, if you want to know what I did, it was pretty basic,” Sam continues. “I said, ‘Hi, you’re Kurt, right? I’m Sam. I think you’re cute. Do you want to go see the new _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movie with me on Saturday? Johnny Depp is smoking in eyeliner.’”

“You really said, ‘Johnny Depp is smoking in eyeliner?’” Puck asks.

Sam rolls his eyes. “I don’t think that was the focus of the proposal, but yes. Why don’t you just ask him if he wants to go see _Slumdog Millionaire?_ I know for a fact he does.”

“Okay,” Puck affirms. “Okay, I can do that.”

Puck spends lunch trying to eat something when his throat feels like it’s closed over. Sam kicks him under the table at least five times. Kurt picks through a salad and obliviously dissects the Quinn-Finn-Rachel love triangle taking place on the other side of the table.

“It’s like something on the Discovery Channel,” Kurt is telling Artie, while Tina and Mercedes bob their heads in agreement. Quinn has her long nails hooked into Finn’s shoulder like claws, sharp. Her teeth are bared at Rachel in a facsimile of a smile. “Watch as the female defends her mate from an interloper,” Kurt says, his tone whisper-quiet and low, like a voiceover. The table hushes as if they’re actually out in the wild somewhere.

Quinn suddenly pulls at Finn’s collar, dragging him into a wet, open-mouthed kiss. Finn’s eyes go surprise-wide, but he gets into it a moment later. Rachel looks beaten.

Aside from her obvious physical attributes, Puck never really liked Quinn much. He does, however, admire her gift for strategy.

The bell rings and people start to rush off to fourth period. Sam kicks Puck one more time for good measure and, spurred on, Puck grabs Kurt by the arm and drags him to the semi-secluded corner behind the Coca-cola vending machine. Kurt looks at Puck’s hand on his arm and then up at Puck’s face.

 _Do you want to go see Slumdog Millionaire with me tonight?_ has been running through Puck’s mind in an endless loop, but suddenly faced with Kurt’s questioning eyes, he blanks. “Johnny Depp is smoking in eyeliner,” Puck blurts.

“True,” Kurt replies, drawing out the word. “Are you feeling okay?”

Puck skips Chemistry to pay a visit to Nurse Betty. He thinks there might honestly be something wrong with him this time.

\---

Puck learns from his disastrous first attempt at asking Kurt out.

Instead of trying to look Kurt in the eye and not freak out while his words jumble and skip, Puck sends Kurt a text message. _Want to see Slumdog Millionaire tonight? 8:00 showing?_ he writes.

Puck thinks it’s kind of embarrassing that not only can he not bring himself to ask Kurt out in person, but he actually went through about ten minutes of angst over the spelling and syntax for the text message. He’d started out with _wanna c slum million 2nite? 8?_ but he didn’t want to come across as illiterate as Kurt probably thinks he is so he’d erased it and fashioned it into an actual sentence complete with spelling at a higher than second grade level. Then he’d considered whether that looked like he was trying too hard.

The thing is, Puck is trying kind of hard. He wants Kurt to take him seriously. He thinks they could have something, be something. So Puck sends the cleaned up version of the movie invite and holds his breath.

Kurt texts back ten seconds later: _sure. meet you at the cinema :)_

\---

The movie has subtitles.

The worst part is that Puck knows he would still have asked Kurt to go see it even if he’d known that beforehand.

Instead of actually _reading_ the subtitles, Puck contemplates how he can possibly be this whipped this early into the potential relationship and thanks God when the kids finally start speaking English.

He and Kurt are sitting in the back row of the theater because Puck had an optimistic moment that things would actually go to fucking plan for once and he didn’t want any potential voyeurs behind him and Kurt. There is a reason Puck leans more toward cynicism. He honestly can’t think of a single moment with Kurt that has gone remotely as planned and this is no different. Kurt has been avidly watching the screen for half an hour while, beside him, Puck is so paralyzed by nervous tension he couldn’t tell the name of the main character.

 _Fuck it_ , Puck thinks. He has to make a move.

It’s probably not the smoothest move ever, but at least he doesn’t pretend to yawn and stretch when he reaches his arm around the back of Kurt’s seat. Unfortunately, he does accidentally bump Kurt’s left shoulder rather hard.

Kurt turns to look at him, the light from the movie screen painting his face in shades of pale red and sky blue. “Do you want me to move over a seat so you have more room to stretch out?” he whispers.

“No,” Puck answers, glad for the darkness of the cinema so Kurt can’t see him blush. He retracts his arm.

Kurt squints at him. “Wait,” Kurt says, slow, and even in the dark of the theater, Puck can see his eyes light up with sudden understanding. The reach around is a pretty universal move. “Is this… is this a date? Did you ask me on a date?”

Puck glances at the movie screen for distraction, but the main character has just been asked a million dollar question too.

“I… yes,” he admits.

Kurt stares. And then he stands. Puck is about to die from humiliation, but then he feels Kurt tug on his hand. “Come on,” Kurt says, quiet. “We need to go somewhere and talk about this.”

Puck follows Kurt out of the cinema. Talking about this feelings clusterfuck that Puck has been going through all year sounds kind of ominous, so Puck tries to focus on the fact that Kurt is still holding his hand.

Outside the cinema, Kurt lets go of Puck and leans against the brick wall. He meets Puck’s eyes, unflinching, and says, “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” Puck replies uncomfortably, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Okay,” Kurt says. “It’s just…I don’t really understand. I never got the impression that you went for guys. You dated Santana and you took Sarah to Prom and it’s like the worst kept secret ever that your pool cleaning business is sort of a cover for you being a cougar escort.”

Puck shrugs. It’s not really complicated. “I like you,” he says simply.

“Okay,” Kurt repeats. “So the thing with Sam, was that you projecting your own self-hate on someone else or…”

“Totally jealous,” Puck admits, looking away.

“Okay,” Kurt says one more time. He reaches out for Puck’s hand again and reels him in. “I’m willing to give this a try,” Kurt breathes against Puck’s cheek. Puck presses Kurt back against the wall and angles his mouth down. He’s been waiting for this for a long fucking time.

\---

There is a lot of stunned staring when Puck and Kurt walk down the hall hand in hand the next day.

Puck feels a little hypocritical considering he did $1500 dollars worth of damage to Sam’s car over _his_ public displays of affection with Kurt, but this was an agreed upon one-time gesture Puck and Kurt decided on. They’re not going to shove their relationship in everyone’s faces but it’s not going to be some dirty secret either.

Finn gapes and accidentally drops a textbook on his foot, grip gone suddenly lax in surprise. Mercedes and Tina appropriate one of Kurt’s arms each and drag him into the girl’s restroom for what Puck is sure will be a what-the-fuck-just-happened talk/interrogation. Puck sweeps the hall with a general all-purpose glare and people shift their eyes away and start moving again.

When Mercedes and Tina return Kurt to him, they give Puck twin _watch-yourself_ looks that are seriously freaky and Puck finds that he’s taken an automatic step back when his elbow hits the cold metal door of his locker.

Kurt rolls his eyes. “It’s fine,” he reassures Puck. “Now, are you actually coming to Algebra today or am I going to have to spend the weekend catching you up on logarithms and linear equations when we could be making out?”

Puck goes to class.

\---

Puck has already met Mr. Hummel, but that only serves to make him more nervous about hanging out at Kurt’s house and possibly having to explain his change in relationship with Kurt.

Because when Puck was just a friend of Kurt’s he was put in the ‘safe’ category but now Mr. Hummel’s overprotective father instincts will probably be blaring DANGER DANGER DANGER whenever Puck is within four feet of Kurt. Also, Mr. Hummel is built like a trucker and owns a shotgun and when Kurt looks at Puck and does this pout thing with his lips Puck tends to forget those facts. This can only end in disaster.

Kurt thinks it’s fucking funny how terrified Puck is of his dad but he usually indulges Puck and agrees to hang out at Puck’s place after school.

So it’s mostly Puck’s own fault when it happens. He’d finally gotten Kurt to agree to watch the Final Four of the NCAA Championship and, flushed with the success of getting Kurt to watch basketball, which Kurt thought ranked as the most boring sport ever and then compounded the offense with the ugliest uniforms, he’d said, “Let’s go watch it at your place in High-Def.”

It’s kind of fantastic. Kansas and Xavier trade basket for basket and watching on Kurt’s 46” flatscreen LCD TV is like having courtside seats. Kansas makes a three pointer and apparently the sound of Puck’s cheering masks the open-shut of the front door because the next thing he knows Mr. Hummel is ten feet away, his eyes assessing Puck and Kurt’s position on the couch.

On the television, the buzzer signals the end of the game’s second quarter with an appropriately discordant hum that pretty much sums up Puck’s feelings about this situation.

Mr. Hummel looks at Kurt. “Is this your new boyfriend?” he asks, a mirror of the question asked weeks ago in the hospital.

Kurt laughs. “Yes, Dad. Puck is my boyfriend.”

Mr. Hummel assesses Puck with a frighteningly calm gaze. Puck tries to guiltily remove his arm from Kurt’s shoulders but Kurt leans back heavily against the couch, trapping him. “I have a shotgun,” Mr. Hummel says.

“I know, sir,” Puck tells him.

“All right. As long as you know,” Mr. Hummel says slowly. “Is Kansas winning?”

\---

Three months into his relationship with Kurt, Puck honestly can’t believe how well shit is going.

Sure, he had to kick Hal Jenkins’s ass for throwing a cherry slushie at him and Kurt last Thursday and Mr. Hummel periodically reminds Puck that he owns a shotgun, but things are good.

The only real snag was when Puck punched Kurt’s friend Ben from Vocal Adrenaline across the face for leaning in a little too close to Kurt, but Kurt proved that Puck’s jealously was totally unfounded in the back of his SUV that night, so Puck actually counts that as a win.

Puck is singing along to the radio when ‘Single Ladies’ comes on and he laughs, thinking of Kurt. Beyonce sings, “If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it. If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it” and Puck flashes back to November, Kurt waving his ring-less hand to the music while Sam cheered in the stands and Puck glowered from the field.

It occurs to him suddenly that Kurt still doesn’t have a ring on his finger, that someone like Ben can spare a glance at Kurt’s empty finger and feel safe to lean in and… Puck makes an abrupt U-turn and speeds back half a mile to the local Target.

He doesn’t have the money for something really nice, nothing that would come in a velvet box or anything, but he finds a polished ring made of sterling silver.

\---

“Would you wear something for me?” Puck asks Kurt while they’re lounging on Kurt’s bed watching a movie on his laptop. Mr. Hummel checks in sporadically, offering snacks and opening the door wider each time he leaves.

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Exactly how kinky is this something?”

“It’s a pretty universally accepted form of bondage,” Puck replies, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the ring. The way the light hits it makes the silver shine. Puck wants to see how it will look on Kurt’s finger.

“What are you doing?” Kurt asks, his voice gone higher than usual. “Because it kind of really looks like you’re proposing and I am beyond freaked out.”

“Shut up,” Puck mumbles, embarrassed. He presses the ring into Kurt’s palm, noticing that the scar from the broken glass has almost completely faded. “It’s symbolic. You know, like that stupid song you always have to hear before you kick the fucking football.” Kurt’s eyes are still a little wild around the edges, so Puck sighs and starts singing, “Cause if you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it. If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it. Don't be mad once you see that he want it. If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it…”

Kurt snorts and then starts laughing almost hysterically. “Sure Jay-Z. I’ll be your Beyonce,” he chokes out, and Puck would be offended, but Kurt’s smiling hugely and then he’s slipping the ring on his finger and throwing his arms around Puck’s neck and laughing into his shoulder, so Puck’s going to take that as a yes.


End file.
